my smart boys

I hesitate to write this blog but hopefully it will help me keep things in perspective. Today Bryan and I met with the boys teacher at the Montessori school they attend 3 days a week. I always enjoy talking with Mr. Jason and today was no exception.

We first talked about Clay. We talked about that Clay still observes a lot of work and needs encouragement to perform his own work. He is interested in older materials that are usually not interesting to other 3 year old kids, such as math materials and reading. We were told today that Mr. Jason has observed Clay reading 2 words at different times. We have not been pushing this but he has been going along the journey of Jaden learning to read. Mr. Jason went on to say that in his 10 years of teaching that he has only had one other 3 year old that was so interested in reading at this young of an age. That is pretty cool that Clay is already at that stage. Much sooner than I thought he would be there.

Then we talked about Jaden. He is five and continues to practice reading and language materials. We talked about how he is doing addition in his head already. He has worked some with the math materials but not that much. It seems he has picked it up very easily. We didn't put any effort into teaching him addition (which is unusual because I seem to put effort into everything he learns). He is not only adding numbers up to 10 + 10 and larger, but he is adding them in his head, without paper or using fingers. Bryan thinks he might be a little math whiz.

I am thinking both of our boys are little geniuses. I am just happy knowing that this will make school more enjoyable for them. I hesitate in writing this because I have a problem comparing my boys to other kids. I see other kids and wonder why are my boys not doing that? It makes me feel bad that I am not teaching them more and devoting more time to it. I have way too high of expectations for myself and them. This is just a bad cycle of guilt and feeling like I am not doing enough. I am working on comparing my kids less and realizing that they are individuals and will do things at different times compared to other kids.

I am trying to celebrate my kids learning ability but I hope that this is not causing others to have comparison problems, like me. Through this, I am trying to realize that it is truly God that I have to thank for my boys learning ability. It is because of Him that they are so blessed. Thanks God.